Picture Perfect

Kindergarten, 6 years of primary school and 7 years of grammar school education, 1 year abroad studying theology and now going to a prestigious university studying law. In all, 17 years of full-time education by the time I'm done with university. What do I want to do with it? Any of the following:

1) Become a smallholder. Now that's the dream. I'll buy me a few acres of land in the country, build me a lil' house'o'wood and get some goats, hens, horses and other such things. 

2)  Become a plumber. These fellows are in demand big-time and make a decent living. There's also something far more satisfying in doing work with your hands than sitting at a computer all day.

2) Become an electrician. If I did this, I would be following in the footsteps of my grandfather, who was also an electrician (interestingly, my grandad on the other side of my family graduated from an English university as a civil engineer).  The same reasons as the above.

2) Become a journalist. As you can see, this too holds joint second place. I'm just torn, people, entirely torn. Journalism is great and if you're with the right people, gives you the chance to influence thins politically, socially and culturally without being a celebrity or politician. Having left-wing tendancies, I'm all for the simple life and power does not appeal to me so much, despite my frequent claims to world domination - and so this position is great. I include this in the catagory of 'writer' and I may already have an idea or two on the shelf...

3+4) Advertising/PR or Sales. This is great and up until recently I had the idea in my head that I was going to intern a massive company during the summer. Unfortunately, despite saying they did, they didn't have any advertising/sales/PR positions - they had loads which included an engineering degree, something I don't have, but oh well.

5) Law. You must be wondering why this is so low on the list, especially considering my university education. I first thought I wanted to be a lawyer since I was 17, but even then I lamented this fate. Don't get me wrong, law is a great subject to study (though parts will bore you to death, as with anything) but to practise? I don't know.

The main thing that bothers me about law is the amount of work and the amount of hours. The next thing which bothers me, once coming to terms with that, are any morally-grey positions you're presented with in the course of the job. Obviously, the practise of law is not exactly like on TV, so no great-looking blonde women accused of multiple homicides turn up to a small hovel of a law firm who happen to have an amazingly bright law-student interning there, who uncovers an entire scam to frame this poor woman who has been robbed of many riches, who ultimately did kill her husband but not the 12 people with him, although she has a fling with the law student who gets her acquitted of all charges afterwhich she disappears with an appropriately large sum of money, never to be heard from again - except in a single letter directing the law student to a small pot of cash burried in a field somewhere to thank him for his untiring work which, though misdirected, got her acquitted.

No, none of that.

Whatever I do, I hope it'll lead to dream number one, being the owner of a reasonably productive smallholding. On this land I'll have a lake with a nice forest area, in absence of this forest area I shall plant it around part of the lake. This goes back to my very first post, written around three-and-a-half years ago, stating:

        "seeing as the only reason I pursue education is to be able to provide sustenance for myself and one day, I hope, a wife and children, I may as well ditch education here and now, find my "one true love," elope to a far away forest, live on nothing but sludge and grass roots, and write poetry on the sad condition of the human race."

Could I ever realise this dream, minus sludge and grass roots? The best thing about it all is Cat's up for this, minus sludge and grass roots...

Who knows? I'll let you know as my life develops!

Why is it that people chasing other people with guns in films always, at some point, make their way through the kitchen of a hotel, restaurant or in some cases, private houses? What's more, the chefs don't seem to notice there are a number of black-suited people who are obviously not part of the kitchen staff, making their way through their kitchen - until someone opens fire. Only then do the chefs seem to register this most obvious intrusion into their professional domain and then it's only to take cover and shout something obvious like "they've got guns!" Wasn't it apparant before any weapon was discharged that the black metalic objects in the hands of these suit-clad fellons were guns? I would think it was.

 

Have you ever tried walking into a hotel or restaurant kitchen? It's just not possible. Even when I was part of the waiting staff, the chefs didn't take kindly to my movements into the hallowed halls in which they work their divine art. It's even more puzzling then, that no one challenges these intruders once, even the person who is unarmed and is running away. And interestingly, all thes chefs armed with all these sharp knives and not one of them helps the unarmed person, who is invariably the hero of the story?

This is compounded even further. If professional chefs are anything like my mother in the kitchen, or indeed anyone I know who cooks,  then the second someone enters their domain all 20-something chefs present would immediately arm themselves with wooden spatulas and form an impenetrable line blocking the passage of any intruder and quickly work together on expunging the alien element(s) from their midst. And that's at a minimum. To be fair though, I couldn't picture my grandad doing this, as he is the most chilled-out chef ever. But then, he used to be in active duty for the RAF as a pilot (WW2), then later a nutritionist and chef India(Various British Colonies), so had to develop an immunity to bombs falling around him and bullets whizzing past, so a little thing like me cluttering his work space isn't going to phase him.

 

But back to the point. If we expect chefs to lose it - and we do - when people clutter their workspace, think what they'd do if someone just pushed over a whole trolley full of their work, as the Evil Ones generally do in films. "HEY! Asshole!" they would shout incredulously, looking up from their steaming pots of Goodness "what do you think you're doing?!" - instead of the apparant lack of recognition chefs in the movies seem to display at this wanton destruction of delicious tid-bits. What would follow would be a scene resembling Fight Club, with the chef and their powerful lamb-chopping skills being converted into astoundingly good karate-chopping skills, ending with the disembodied head of the felon placed on a stick and displayed outside the kitchen door, with the words "do not enter" newly written in blood.

In fact, the amount of times unaffiliated people enter kitchens in the movies, I would expect chefs have grown accustomed to such invasion and have a specially prepared selection of extra sharpened knives on the side, for the sole purpose of throwing at the wrongdoer.

But then, I've never seen headlines like "shootout in communal kitchen! Mafia suspected" or "Government agents pursue armed man through hotel kitchen" and the like. Where does Hollywood get this from, and why are kitchens so important to script writers? I can only assume it's a local hollywood phenomenon. Perhaps that also explains why chefs are so nonplussed when people wreck their wares and food: it happens so often, there isn't any use crying over spilt ratatouille.

But what of the patrons of these places in and around California? Why would they put up with such things? They must have waited at least a good half hour for the food on that tray and now it's ruined. Wouldn't they object to having to wait another half hour? I can only assume so. In which case they will no doubt get up to leave and the restaurant will lose custom and of course, money. Since it's not simply one meal which has been ruined, but a whole trolly worth, we can expect a whole trolly worth of people - say 10 - to get up and leave. Where will they spend their hard earned bucks? Nowhere. It shall remain in the bank and no one will spend a penny, thus starting an economic bust.

This bust will, of course, be replicated throughout the US and once the boys in wall street hear about it, the entire world. I have concluded, therefore, that the global credit crunch has nothing to do with the resale of high-risk mortgages, and everything to do with people disrespecting food.

I ask Arty for clarification on this. Am I right, or am I damn right?